Workshop on “Policy Instruments for Pollution Control in China: Design, Implementation and Impact”

In the past two decades, China has been at the forefront in experimenting with a variety of policy instruments in response to dire consequences and challenges of environmental problems. Total quantity control, for example, has been used extensively for pollution control, and market-based instruments such as tradable permits have been also experimented in different localities. In a number of areas, the central government has conducted policy pilots across different localities to test their effectiveness against different operating environment. Given the size and diversity of the country, the extensive application and experimentation of policy instruments provide unprecedented opportunities to study the dynamics and effectiveness of different policy instruments.   

Despite voluminous studies on the topic, interdisciplinary and evidence-based research on policy instruments for pollution control in China, has been scanty. Much of the existing literature has been based on the approaches and methods that are confined in a particular discipline, such as economics, political science, and public administration, while interdisciplinary approach is imperative to have a comprehensive understanding of the potential and limitation of different instruments. More importantly, rigorous analyses based on empirical evidence have been rare due to challenges in data collection and impact assessment. Applications of scientific research methodologies can help to improve the rigor of research in this area, especially with regard to the long term and system-wide impacts of the applications of different policy instruments. Furthermore, science and technology should have played pivotal roles in the choices of pollution control policy instruments in China, but such effects have been poorly understood in the existing literature.